


Drive

by crowroad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Americana, Brother Feels, Episode: s11e04 Baby, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Road Trips, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowroad/pseuds/crowroad
Summary: Who's gonna drive you home.(Or: Sam & Baby on the road post 15 x 20)
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	Drive

Call the dog. Let the dog have shotgun. Take a deep breath and climb in and run her the way your brother taught you, steady and true and a little reckless. Flair, but not like his. A little f-you to a stoplight; nothing that’ll bring the cops out. Drive like it’s the first time, like there’s _destination_ , county and field road; beribboned highway cross. Like there’s an end in sight. Like every road has a ghost, because it does. 

*****

Six weeks, you say into the phone, which is how long it’s been since you did more than walk, run: the dog, the byways, the fields. Groceries you don’t put away and don’t cook; don’t eat. Bike, which you don’t ride. Baby gleaming; baby weeping. You don’t know what to say when they ask, when they offer, when they cajole. 

I can’t drive his car, you say, because now—

she was a cradle; she’s a grave.

*****

First try to talk to him. Sit in shotgun with your fists on your knees. Get shaky and try to stop. Slide over and brave it. Touch the wheel. Talk to her. 

Dean—

Imagine him grinning; imagine him shoving you sweet; hands-off; hands _off_. 

She speaks first but you don’t really know--

_Take me to town._

*****

Take her to town. It’s a date. Park her on Main; brick and flag and once-was. Grain and water and nowhere to drink; gray sky; prairie decay.

Smile stiff at the ones you know. Ladow’s, spicy jerky; pull from the flask that was his, your father’s before. 

Hey, someone says; Sam, right? You look like you’re gonna pass out.

Hey, someone else says, do you need to—

Blank faces, flannel; sweet-voiced teens in boots. 

I’m—you say. Lean on her hood. Look away.

Hey, one of them says, where’s your brother? 

Are you OK? Do you need someone to—

Climb in shotgun; duck and wave.

Who’s gonna drive you home?

*****

Drive yourself home, pet the dog, pass out, wake up, feed the dog, pass out again. 

You can almost hear her ticking, down in the garage. 

Her longing.

*****

Take her out. Crash her. Not bad; just a skid; something dead in the road, shallow ditch full of winter mud. 

I don't know how it happened, you say, though you do. 

Well, the tow says, I can take her; fix her up for—

Drive her home yourself, dinged; lie on the garage floor and think of thunder snow, think of today; how he would have joked, how would have steered, smooth as ice, into that skid and away.

Baby needs to run, Dean says, _b_ _ut not like that, dude._

If he were really here he’d put a hand up, way he always used to—

_Sammy, you promised_. 

Try to shine her, the way he did; see your hollows shining back. 

*****

Pack her up. Go on the road. But first: buy the dog a fancy collar. _Mira._ Because the whole name is a theology you don’t know how to—

This is not what I meant, Dean says from shotgun; naught but longing.

Jody, Eileen, Garth, Donna, Charlie; all of them too much Dean and too little, crossover you can’t even explain. 

Dean’s old mixtapes; jackets; his gun. 

*****

Drive: to places you’ve been, all but the last. 

Don't go to Ohio ever again; should have known after the devil, never to go on any of these planes. 

Sam, Dean says, I know what you’re doing.

Choke because you won’t see him again in the body you burned. 

Sam, Dean says, slow down. 

_It’s so real._

Think about all the places you've been; concussion, contusion, fracture; sequelae.

*****

Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon; old-school roadhouse where—

the scent of your brother lifts off the bar, and you want to know what the barkeep knows, the waitresses know; every remnant the earth contains. 

Sleep in the back. Tell yourself to stop sleeping in back, neck bent from sleeping in the back which you’re too old to--

I went for a joyride in car like that, someone says, looks at you as you climb out, leash in hand.

You--

Yeah, she says, and winks. 

I slept with a cute waitperson in the back, is what you think. Piper, your brother said, something about how she smelled (home fries, ginger, jasmine perfume).

That’s my boy, Dean says, leans on the trunk.

It’s unbearable.

This one is looking at you; coal-black dye job, retro eyes. Joyrider.

Hey—what happened to you? Are you alright?

I'm--in recovery, you say.

You could talk to her. You could take her home, though that’s nowhere. You could ask her:

_What do you know about my brother?_

She’s looking at you, fear and sympathy, hands 3 and 9; her hands on the wheel.

*****

Eat at the roadhouse, Dean’s usual. Get sick. Hurl in a motel sink while you think about the traces you don’t know--from strangers, from monsters; mineral, alluvial, collateral; Dean’s nails, Dean’s skin; everything they took from him, from you.

Truth, you left a stain, there in the back, where no-one could see; your brother’s blood on the seat, like she won’t run without—

that magic, some part of him. 

Look Sammy, Dean says, you can’t just keep--

He holds your head while you shudder and heave.

Kid, he says, you sure know you to--

I never told you, you say.

You told me that, Dean says kindly, and _that too._ Whatever it is you’re thinking, _you told me._

Sit on the floor next to the can, wet-eyed, and look at him. 

Arizona’s not bad this time of year, Dean says.

*****

Drive: Take her to the red rock country; take her to the gray lands north of Flagstaff, take her all the way to the canyon; park her in front of a little lodge;Yavapai: pinion and elk; lodgepole kitsch.

Remember Bones, the first dog of your freedom; remember your brother, the first long goodbye. 

Mira has a service vest you don’t feel good about. 

It’s not that you never made it here. It’s that you did. Sunset's the other way but you can see all the way down to the Colorado, all the way down to the last word of god. 

Sammy, Dean says, you remember.

Sammy, Dean says, think about the ones we saved, no--

the ones _you_ saved.

Sammy, Dean says, get yourself an eyeful, and _go to bed_.

_Get back on the road._

*****

Drive. Roll north and east on fumes. Find her, the psychic mechanic your brother sent you in a dream. Or: see hunter signs on the service stop off I-40 and pull in, let her fill you up, pet the car, pet the dog, take your hands.

You think I don’t know why you’re here, she says; _please_. Dark hair, Navajo maybe. Maybe Dean’s age; maybe older.

She closes up; sits you in back with a candle, takes your hands, doesn’t give a name.

Your brother's walking the telegraph road, she says, --no, driving it.

Axis mundi, you say.

She looks at you like—

_Winchester, I know where you’ve been._

Things are different there now, she says, though I can’t say for sure how.

Telegraph, you say, does that mean I can talk to--

You can, she says, but—

Put your head right down on the table. 

Time's different, she says, I don't have to tell you.

_I can see the soul-rift._

I’ll make it harder for him, you say, if I try to contact—

She blows the candle out, lights another; desert sage.

I can tell you, she says, the best marks you and your brother have left on this earth can't be seen, or scented, or scratched on a map, or found at all. There's no spell, and they need no stone.

In a way, she says, he’s the happiest he’s ever been.

_He knows what waits in the end._

What if I can’t wait, you say, because you have to.

Go home, she says, you know where to find me.

*****

Call the dog. Put the dog in shotgun. Keep driving. Drive all the way home to Kansas on a dry wind. Stop at a crossroads. Lean on her wheel and cry because you’re the only one left. 

To carry all the griefs.

Nooo, Dean says from the back, there’s no crying at crossroads. 

You burst out laughing because --

_Oh, stay._ Your eyes are hot. You can’t wait. For life to start or be over and you don’t know which. 

Look in the rearview at what’s behind you. Let the dog lick your hand and the wind tick through.

The road is both of yours, the psychic said, always has been, always will.

You’re free Sammy, Dean says, somewhere, everywhere.

_Drive._


End file.
